The above picture is the Mobile home that was beyond repair. The previous owner refused to move it so it left us with the task which was acceptable considering the deal we got. Hitting the www and finding information on removing one was close to impossible. Phone work provided the best results however, the fees ranged from $2,500 to $3,500 sight unseen. It probably would have been more had they seen the situation. Lastly, we didn’t want to have it on the way to the dump and it fall apart on the highway, more money.
Why not renovate it? We nick named the property "Dog Barn" for a reason. The place was being used a a dog kennel and the mobile was used for dogs that were sick and pregnant. The trailer SMELLed aweful and coupled with the fact that at one time it had a water line break in it made it a smelly rotten mess. Getting the mobile aired out was a priority.
Researching how to demolish it turn up some guy with an axe swinging at a retired wheeled homestead in a crappy You-Tube Video. So to the mobile home we went, with lots of tools and curiosity. After poking around I came up with a plan of attack that would take us several days. The steps are simple and for us we did them out of order for a reason, mainly to get fresh air inside a smelly house.
1. Clear out major fixtures (basically the master bathroom) and loose debris in the mobile. To accomplish this we tore out the wall at the back end of the trailer.
2. Remove the siding, windows, doors and insulation.
3. Cut the roof section across the trailer between ceiling joist. Determine the amount of debris you can handle at one time. For us it was a 6 to 8 foot section of roof. We could actually flip this over by hand after we pulled it down. Secure a chain to the opposite side that you will be pulling from to get the roof down to ground level. Just wrap it around a stud in the middle of the section.
4. Cut or remove any straps or wires that will cause resistance.
5. Cut the studs on the opposite side of the pull
6. Loosen any center walls with a hammer or saw.
7. Bust the sheet rock in the ceiling along the cut line (very important)
8. Pull the section down to ground level.
9. Flip over Roof section (if it did not during the pull) and remove insulation and ceiling joist.
10. Sort debris and repeat.
Day 1
Removed some of the skirting to see what we were up against, located power, water sewer and how to get the tin off of the sides. First Day of Demo
Day 2
Ripped out all of the master bathroom fixtures, water heater, and back wall. So far this proved to be the most difficult part of the trailer demo. A sink, toilet, jacuzzi, shower and waterheater were all in this space and fastened with screws. We spent an entire day removing this stuff. I failed to recognize that the waterheater was full of water when I pushed it over and when I tried to pick it up the floor gave out on me. Be sure to drain the tank or you might find yourself under the trailer house. Master Bathroom Removed
Day 3
Removed all skirting, porch and surrounding fence. We disconnected the water, re-routed the electricity. Fortunately most of the carpet had been pulled up due to a water leak and stacked nicely in a pile.
Day 4
Busted out most of the Kitchen cabinets cleaned out miscellaneous stuff left behind by the previous owners. Figured out what to do with the insulation. We found it best to put it in plactice yard bags. The first ones we tried were strong enough to resist tears and we were able to vaccum the air out of them making it very small. This is a picture of how much we were able to get in One Bag. Yes, that entire wall. On day 5 we would find that our new bags weren't as strong and by the time we had them stuffed there were too many holes to vaccum the bag.
Day 5
Wow! Things went fast today! We pulled down 18 feet of mobile home and sorted the debris by hand. We accomplished this in 6 foot sections. With 3 people working, each section took approximately 30 minutes to prep, pull down and 30 minutes to clean up. So about one hour per section. The way we found best to do this was to cross cut the roof next to a ceiling joist using a saws-all and an axe 6 feet at a time. Then cut the header boards on each side of the roof corresponding with the cross cut. Since we were pulling across the mobile we cut the studs on the opposite side. Our first pull resulted in a dismantled cable. We couldn't figure out why the 6 foot section didn't budge. Believe it or not the thin sheet rock is sandwiched between the header boards and pulling across the section without breaking it at the cut created so much resistance that our cable clamps slipped. We smash the ceiling with a crow bar at the cut line and it pulled over easily.
Discovery of things we didn't know played in our favor. First the tin roof is not attached in anyway to the ceiling joist. The tin is only attached at the header board that run the full length of a mobile home. So when we pulled the section over, it conveniently dismantled itself. Second, everything is wire nails from a nail gun and the stuff slips apart with ease when hit with an axe or hammer. As you can see, the Roof Remains are minimal once we folded them down and stacked them. This is an 18' x 12' section of roof. Note the header boards are still attached in the stack.
Worst job of the whole process was the insulation clean up. Wear a dust mask for this. It flies everywhere.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Su9zvFe7xU&rel=1]
Day 6
Staffing had an upgrade today. One of our neighbors volunteered to help us for the day and we had a work force of 4. Of course I suspect that he will not remain on the team due to the tremendous effort he put forth and the amount of soreness he will experience over the next three days. Because of the extra help we were able to annihilate 32' of mobile home.
New things we learned were not to miss any steps prior to pulling down the roof. We only had one good pull today because we either forgot to break the sheet rock, cut the studs on the opposite side, or both. Wires can cause plenty of resistance as well and held back a lot of what we were working on.
The Axe has to be the biggest story of the day and ranks right up there with the Sawsall. This one was left over from a neighborhood yard sale with a $1.00 sale tag on it. It was used as wedge and beat to the point where it has a crack in it. In other words it's no wonder nobody wanted it. It ended up in my garage (no charge) and after reviewing it's neglected head and handle I fixed both the best I could putting the sharpest edge possible with a grinder. We have worked the trailer over with this thing cutting, wood, tin, aluminum, plastic, nails, and steel strapping. Other than the handle slipping it doesn't even have a nick in the blade.
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCMCSAGjddc
This is the wall between the master bedroom and the living area. We had to try it a couple of time due to the extra walls>
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRXvdD_sEVA
This should have been easy but we forgot to cut the studs on the opposite side and break the sheet rock.
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5eliT8H8gQ
Bye Bye kitchen
Day 7
The last two 6 foot sections were pulled over today leaving nothing but a flat floor on a frame. To our surprise on the last pull we actually pulled up about 3 feet of flooring with it, exposing our next task - removing the floor from the frame. We found that the flooring is not as secure as one would think. A 3/8 inch bolt with a metal bar acts as a clasp to the frame and repeats about every 6 feet or so along the frame. Every 10 feet or so a bat wing brace extends away from the frame on both sides with two 3/8 inch bolts running through the extension into a floor joist. These are in there just tight enough to give me a excuse to buy another tool - a butterfly impact air wrench. Sorry no pics or videos today, we forgot the camera.
Day 8
The floor was our primary focus today. I thought that the best way to dismantle it would be to try and flip it over by pulling it with a cable in sections. No only did this not work, it made a bigger mess than necessary. It took us most of the morning to clean up a 12 foot section.
The best way we found was to do the following:
1. Remove the bolts attaching the floor to the frame. These are located randomly along the length of the frame and on all gussets.
2. Remove the outside ledger board nailed to the ends of the floor joist. We beat these off with a sledge hammer and an axe. On some occasions we had to saw them or beat a hole in the floor to remove them, but very rarely.
3. In sections of what equals about 2 to 3 floor joist, flip over the section on to the existing floor by putting a person on each end of the last joist and lifting it until it breaks. On some occasions we had to help the break line with an axe.
4. Remove joist and chop flooring with an axe. A couple of dotted lines is all it took with axe to get the flooring into pieces small enough to carry.
5. After a sizable section has been removed, cut the fiber paper holding up the insulation in 4 foot sections and roll up the insulation across the frame.
6. Clean up the remaining stuff.
The only surprise today was the fact that the flooring was so damn heavy. This was due in part by some light rain we had the previous week. The good thing is that the damn particle board broke apart easier. We were very please by the end result today and Alaina actually is getting excited about the project now.
Day 9
We did it! It is done! We had about 24 feet of floor left this morning and we completed it in about 1.5 hours doing the steps above. By noon we had the first secton of the frame cut up with the torch and by 3:00 we were completely finished with the entire area cleared of any mobile home parts The only things left were a water spigot, septic inlet, and a power pole.
The Frame when really fast with the torch. I cut the center angle iron cross beams out of the middle and cut the I beam where they had been joined at the factory. When we got down to the axles I cut the shakles to the springs off and left them laying for futher dismantling. One torch equalls a one man job so Alaina and Dave relocated all of the support cinder blocks while I was working on the frame.
The Axels were bent so I cut the hardware off the ends to retain the pipe for future projects. The rest went to the trash pile. We slid the frame sections to an area out of the way. Some of these will be skids for a future tool shed. The dead men were pulled out with a high lift jack and chain.
The Picture below shows the parameter of the mobile. Look closely and you can see where the skirting was buried. Techically you could say that the 3 of us are standing in what use to be the shower.
Special thanks goes out to my father-in-law. We couldn't have don't it without you Super Dave!
